The Peter Kiewit Student Entrepreneurial Award is designed to recognize University of Nebraska students who have directed their energies, ideas, and talents toward community and business improvements with the creative and innovative use of information technology.

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2010 Award Winner

Christopher Bruening, University of Nebraska-Lincoln mechanical engineering graduate

University of Nebraska President James B. Milliken has announced that the 2010 winner of the Peter Kiewit Student Entrepreneurial Award is Christopher Bruening, a UNL mechanical engineering graduate. Bruening is part of the three-member founding team of Agricultural Flaming Innovations, LLC. AFI was established in 2009 with a vision to provide safe, energy-efficient flaming equipment and techniques for weed and pest control.

Bruening has played a major role in the engineering research and product development that will make AFI a success, according to his nominator, George Gogos, a UNL mechanical engineering professor who is also part of AFI’s founding team. (Stevan Knezevic, an associate professor of integrated weed management at UNL, is the third member of the team.) Bruening has built business knowledge by taking an entrepreneurship course and attending relevant conferences and trade shows such as Husker Harvest Days, and in spring 2009, he wrote a business plan for AFI.

Bruening earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2006 and his master’s degree in 2009, both from UNL. He has more than 10 years of experience working on his family’s agronomy farm, and four years of experience working as a lab technician and graduate research assistant.

Milliken said Bruening represents a growing number of young people interested in entrepreneurship, noting a recent Gallup survey found that 70 percent of young Nebraskans want to start their own business.

“Leveraging the entrepreneurial spirit of these young people will be key to Nebraska’s future economic growth, and the University of Nebraska can help accomplish this,” Milliken said. “By directing his creativity, passion and talents toward improving our community – while simultaneously furthering his education – Christopher Bruening truly embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship.”